NASA seeking 'radical' ideas

Posted: Monday, October 24, 2005

ATLANTA - Your grandchildren's world is being invented with the help of a three-person office on the fringe of Georgia Tech's campus funded by NASA.

The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts is looking for the "next big idea" that the space agency should be developing for 40 years hence, like spacecraft propelled by solar-wind-powered sails, elevators to outer space and slingshots that can heave rockets to the Moon. And the ideas could come from anyone or anywhere.

The elevator idea, for instance, originated in science fiction but didn't become feasible until the development of nano-carbon tubes that can be fashioned into a paper-thin ribbon stretching 62,000 miles into space from a ground station. A "climber" car would pull itself up the ribbon, powered by converting to electricity a laser beam aimed upward.

Such an arrangement could carry as much weight as the space shuttle at a fraction of the cost and with a turnaround time of days as opposed to months.

Another idea would be a spacesuit made of synthetic materials that form to the body, creating less bulk than today's suits and allowing astronauts to prolong space walks and maneuver on low-gravity planets.

They're a few of NIAC's success stories.

NIAC initially puts up $75,000 so the person proposing a viable idea can flesh it out over the next six months. If there's enough information to stretch beyond a 12-page proposal, it's probably based on too much existing science and isn't a candidate for the institute, officials say.

Those proposals that hold the most promise get a second phase of support and $400,000 during the following two years to refine the concept, discover the hurdles to overcome and outline what steps researchers would take next to make it a reality.

"Anybody can send us a proposal," NIAC Director Robert Cassanova said. "Anybody but someone from NASA."

A committee of scientists performs a peer review to determine if the proposals are flaky or groundbreaking. Even those approved for support are so far ahead of current science that most would never merit funding from any other source - academic, governmental or commercial.

Cassanova described one recent project, a 200-kilometer mesh cable that would rotate end over end as it orbits the Earth. He uses his pen to demonstrate how momentum would bring each end toward Earth, then sling it back toward space where it could release a payload, flinging it toward the Moon or another planet without the need of expensive rockets or bulky fuel.

"Technically speaking, this looks feasible," he said. Then he pauses and grins, "But, as with a lot of these concepts, there are just a few details that need to be worked out."

Those details are the kinds of things NASA could devote a few decades to. Or private industry could latch onto them, as it has with the elevator idea.

NASA saw a need eight years ago for a think tank to generate daring innovations. When a consortium of academics, the Universities Space Research Association, made a formal proposal, it recommended Cassanova to head it. He was just retiring from Georgia Tech's Research Institute and already knew the issues.

Thanks to the Internet, there was no reason to move from Atlanta, since the proposals all come online.

Scientists familiar with NASA say the institute is needed.

"If you think about developing advanced concepts and you're going to meet President Bush's initiative of sending people to Mars, you can't just go buy technology off the shelf," said Chuck Doarn, executive director of the University of Cincinnati's Center for Surgical Innovation, which focuses on the remote medical monitoring and procedures he helped invent as head of NASA's telemedicine program in the 1990s.

"The people who develop advanced concepts, they have to think way out there," Doarn said.